This is a sporadic blog to share my point / crocheting and genealogy efforts, and to boast of my hairballs. I am also going to put the buttons of my favorite shopping sites from time to time. Hope you are of interest to you, too.

Donna Vivino, the Current Incredible Standby for the Awsome, and incredible Carmen Cusack, will be playing the role full time, beginning November 14, 2008. Her replacement as the Standby will be Merideth Kaye Clark, the current awesome Understudy! I Cannot tell you how excited I am! Katie is Supposed to be Sticking around as Glinda.

One of the actors I look up to most, Brad Weinstock, will be leaving the Company of WICKED on November 9. Ben Liebert, the current Broadway Boq, will be replacing him. Ben's replacement is supposed to be Alex Brightman. there is also rumor of Erin Mackey touring with the Wicked tour, Donna Vivino replacing Carmen, Brynn O'Malley replacing Cristy Candler, on Broadway, and Carmen and Katie replacing Kerry and Kendra on Broadway. I will keep you posted.

You heard correctly folks, Eden Espinosa and Megan Hilty will return to the roles of Glinda and Elphaba to close out the Los Angeles Production of WICKED. Tickets are still available at http://www.ticketmaster.com/

My birthday is coming up in less than a month and I’m going to be 43 this year. I just had a baby in January ’08, so some days I feel my age, but because I’ve been blessed with good genes (a Filipino/Irish/French mother and a Japanese/Okinawan/Scot father), most days, I don’t look my age.

I’ve been in the industry for what seems like forever (20 years) and I’ve used hundreds of different products on my skin. The product that I’ve seen the best results with has been Neova Creme de la Copper.

Here’s a bit of disclosure before we go any further. I worked for ProCyte, the makers of Neova for two years (2000-2002). When I joined the company, I was skeptical about the benefits I’d see with the skin care products even though the company’s technology (GHK Copper Peptide also known as Prezatide Copper Acetate) had tons of science behind it. I started to use Neova Night Therapy right away and in 8 weeks, I had an “aha!” moment in the mirror. You know those moments when you look in the mirror and say, “Wow! My skin looks fantastic!” My skin looked the best it had looked in years, and I had great skin to begin with.

Prezatide Copper Acetate (GHK Copper Peptide) is the performance ingredient in all Neova Therapy products. The actual scientific explanation of how it works can get somewhat complicated, so for you science/ingredient geeks (I’m the president of that club) go to: http://www.procyte.com/brand.php?bid=9. I co-wrote an article several years ago about the technology that was published in Les Nouvelles Esthetique. If you'd like a copy of it, let me know and I'll email you a PDF. For the rest of you normal people who here’s the simple explanation: copper is an essential mineral for building collagen and elastin skin. Did you know that? Neither did I until I started working for ProCyte. ProCyte has bonded a chain of amino acids to a copper molecule to drive it into the skin so that it can do its work down in the dermis.

Perhaps the thought has occurred to you, “why can’t I just stuff myself full of copper-rich foods or take a supplement?” Well, that would be a great idea since Americans typically have a copper deficient diet and the copper that we do take into our bodies goes to running our vital organs. Nuts, liver, oysters and chocolate (the only thing palatable as far as I’m concerned) are all exceptional sources of copper, but if you want copper to do its business on your skin, you’ve got to apply it topically. ProCyte’s patented GHK Copper Peptide is the only copper ingredient that really works because of the peptide that’s bonded to it. Think of the peptide as the vehicle and the copper as the passenger. The peptide knows where it’s going, drives the passenger there and lets it out at the final destination to work at stimulating collagen and elastin. The result is beautiful, firm, youthful looking skin.

When I was in my 30’s, Neova Night Therapy was enough, but now that I’ve hit my 40’s, I prefer the richer texture of Neova Creme de la Copper. But let me warn you, it’s not a cheap date. At $97.00 for 1.7 oz (available at www.dermadoctor.com) the price can seem a bit steep in these hard economic times. So I’ve got a little secret for you: ProCyte licensed a copper peptide technology (Copper Tripeptide-1) to Neutrogena which they carry in their Visibly Firm products. They have a Night Cream that retails for about $20 at your local drugstore that I think performs just as well as Neova Night Therapy or Creme de la Copper. I use Neutrogena Visibly Firm Night Cream when money gets a little tight and I’m always happy with the results. I’ve tried to use other moisturizers over the last six years and nothing makes my skin look as good as a product with GHK Copper Peptide in it.

So there you have it. That’s my fountain of youth. And while I’d like to keep it to myself and make you believe that I’m younger than I really am, the truth is I’ve got some serious help in a jar.

In 2004, when I was working as a product development/education manager for a direct sales company, I received several emails on a daily basis asking about the use of parabens in products. This was when parabens started to get a bad rap among consumers and companies were scrambling to find alternative preservative systems.

There are parabens in many products; you’ll see them listed as methylparaben, propylparaben, butylparaben, ethylparaben, isopropylparaben and isobutylparaben. Parabens are preservatives that are added to skin, hair and body care products to protect the product and the consumer from the many types of bacteria and fungus that can grow in a product. These unwelcomed “critters” can compromise the integrity of a product (make it separate, make it smell bad) and can in some cases can hurt you (from skin rashes all the way to blindness). Parabens are the most-used preservatives in cosmetics and drugs, yet they are the least likely among traditional preservatives to cause irritation or allergies. They’ve been used in cosmetics since the 1930s and are among the safest ingredients used in cosmetics and drugs. Manufacturers use a blend of parabens in their products to protect against a wide range of contaminants (this is because some preservatives only protect against certain forms of bacteria, mold or fungus, etc). These blends of preservatives provide us with what we call "broad spectrum protection".

So what are the issues? Over the past 3 years, an email has been circulating that suggested antiperspirants and deodorants cause breast cancer. It then it suggested parabens may be the culprit because of their ability to mimic estrogen. This is pretty scary stuff considering that many of the personal care products that we use on ourselves and on our children contain parabens.

I’d like to address this issue because there is so much misinformation on the web about parabens. For the purposes of education, I am relying heavily on information from an article written for Skin Inc. magazine in January 2006 by Rebecca James Gadberry. (Editor’s note: This article originally appeared in the January 2006 issue of Skin Inc. Visit www.skininc.com). Ms. Gadberry is the instructor of Cosmetic Sciences in the Department of Humanities, Sciences, Social Sciences and Health Sciences at UCLA Extension in Los Angeles and is the leading ingredient authority in the professional skin care industry. Here’s what she has to say:

“Throughout the past decade, parabens have been recognized as several of the more than 8000 endocrine disrupters in the environment. These chemicals, which behave like animal estrogens, can affect hormone balances adversely or disrupt the normal function of organs that are controlled by hormones . . ..Because parabens are known to penetrate the skin, concern has been voiced by some watchdog organizations that those that are included in cosmetics might act as endocrine disrupters when applied to the skin. Cosmetic chemists who are familiar with the skin-penetration activity of parabens maintain that this is not possible because once they enter the skin, they form metabolites that are incapable of mimicking estrogen.” (emphasis added)

“At the beginning of 2004, a study was published by an English toxicologist that seems to put this accepted scientific knowledge into doubt.1 Philllipa Darbre, PhD, a senior cancer researcher at the University of Reading in the United Kingdom, reportedly stopped using antiperspirants in the mid-1990s, due to a gut feeling that they were connected to breast cancer. Seven years later, she looked for the presence of parabens—ingredients she believed were used in deodorants and antiperspirants—in 20 breast tumors and found them in 18. Although stopping short of stating that the parabens came from underarm products, she did claim that the chemical form of those she discovered indicated that they had been applied to the skin, rather than consumed. She advised that further research be completed in order to determine their source.

“Unfortunately, Darbre’s findings have been misreported widely by news agencies, cosmetic companies and others as proving that parabens cause breast cancer, with the likely contributors being antiperspirants and deodorants. Some reports even state that the Darbre study shows a clear connection between these products and breast cancer.

“In January 2005, the European Union’s Scientific Committee on Consumer Products (SCCP) published an opinion paper that evaluated paraben safety in relation to breast cancer.2 Shortcomings in the Darbre study are among its findings. These include the following:

“A lack of control tissue against which to measure paraben levels in other areas of the body or in breast that did not contain tumors.

“No report of the subjects’ therapeutic history, which may have uncovered other sources of paraben exposure.

“No mention of the paraben-containing anti-cancer drugs that the tumor subjects were using.

“No description of how the tissue was handled. Contamination could have occurred then.

“And although Darbre suggests that the paraben source may be underarm cosmetics, the SCCP states that 98% of underarm products, including deodorants and antiperspirants, do not contain them. Therefore, it is highly doubtful that the substance could have come from these products.

“The SCCP concluded that ‘There is no evidence of demonstrable risk for the development of breast cancer caused by paraben-containing underarm cosmetics,’ especially in view of the weak estrogenic potential of these ingredients. ‘With regard to their general toxicological profile, acute, subacute and chronic toxicity studies in rats, dogs and mice have proven parabens to be practically nontoxic, not carcinogenic, not genotoxic or co-carcinogenic, and not teratogenic (i.e. fetal toxicants).’”

Additionally, both the National Cancer Institute (www.cancer.gov) and the American Cancer Society (www.cancer.org) have web pages dedicated to addressing the Internet rumor that antiperspirants and deodorants cause breast cancer. The National Cancer Institute states, “There is no conclusive research linking the use of underarm antiperspirants or deodorants and the subsequent development of breast cancer.” Regarding the Darbre study ACS states, “…this study did not prove that parabens cause breast tumors. The authors of this study did not analyze healthy breast tissue or tissues from other areas of the body, and did not demonstrate the parabens are found only in cancerous breast tissue. Furthermore, this research did not identify the source of the parabens and cannot establish that the accumulation of parabens is due to the use of deodorants or antiperspirants. More research is needed to specifically assess whether the use of deodorants or antiperspirants can cause the accumulation of parabens in breast tissue, and whether these chemicals can promote the development of breast cancer.” (www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/Rish/AP-Deo)

Regarding parabens estrogen-like properties, the American Cancer Society states “While parabens have weak estrogen-like properties, the estrogens that occur naturally in the body are hundreds to thousands times more potent. Therefore, these natural estrogens (or those taken as hormone replacement) are much more likely to play a role in breast cancer development.” (www.cancer.org)

The bottom line is that the safety of parabens applied to the skin is practically conclusive. Parabens are among the safest ingredients used in cosmetics and drugs. They keep the product safe to use and keep the consumer safe from harm. However, most cosmetic companies are going “paraben-free”. Why? Personally, I think it’s easier to go paraben-free than it is to explain the errors in the Darbre study to your customers. Only a couple years ago, eliminating parabens was a costly endeavor for many companies raising their fill price by 30% in some cases, so many smaller manufacturers dug in their heels because they were unable to afford a change in formulation. But science has come a long way and cost effective paraben-free preservative systems are now available to manufacturers. This allows smaller manufacturers to switch over without a huge financial burden while providing the customer a product they feel safe using.

So, have I thrown out all the personal care products that I own that contain parabens? No. And you shouldn’t either. If you’re concerned about endocrine disrupters, look at your diet and your herbal supplements first and your personal care products last.

My love for makeup, like most makeup junkies, goes all the way back to my childhood. When I was about 4-years old, Santa brought me a vanity for Christmas, and I’d sit in front of it for hours applying Tinkerbell makeup. I can still remember the way Tinkerbell lipstick tasted.

Unlike most makeup junkies, I was lucky enough to land a job creating cosmetics. I worked as the Product Development Manager for a Redmond, Washington based company called Garden Botanika. I was first employee hired for the field and within just a few years, I was working in the coveted spot of product development manager for skin care and cosmetics only because the woman in the position decided that she needed to stay home with her kids. It didn’t hurt that the president and vice president of the company really liked me (talk about being in the right place at the right time). I was young, perky, hip, in my late twenties and had the best job in the world. When the company filed for reorganization, I had to move on since I was the bread winner in the family. It killed me, but I landed a great job with a medical skin care company where I learned a great deal.

Unlike the majority of my fellow product development mavens, I am not a makeup snob. I am perfectly happy with my $8 mascara, my $.99 nail polish and my Cotton Candy Lipsmacker. Why? Because they work for me. I know how much it costs to make this stuff, so it’s hard for me to justify spending a small fortune on anything if I know that a less expensive, comparable version exists. See, the thing is, no matter what anyone tells you, you can put together a skin care or cosmetic regime with products from Target and Nordstrom as long as the combination works for you. As sales people, we’re taught to tell the customer that products are designed to work synergistically with each other (and for some lines that’s true), but when it comes to your skin, it’s okay to mix and match products from other lines to find what works for YOU.

My family and friends have asked my advice about skin care and cosmetics for years and it wasn't until recently that it occurred it me that I should start blogging. So here we go! My blog will be a goodie bag of topics from product reviews to a discussion of skin issues. Feel free to comment and ask questions. There’s a ton of information about products, ingredients, formulation and the skin in my brain and the thing I love most is to share it.